Lucero Castaneda AP US History Ms.Lampley

LincolnLincoln is a Dramatically Historical movie directed by Steven Spielberg, in which Daniel Day-Lewis plays the role of United States President Abraham Lincoln. The movie starts with a war, which was the Civil War, and President Lincoln is talking to two black soldiers that are somewhat happy that they will be fighting for the country and are also discussing “negroes” inequality and how hopefully in the future “negroes” will be treated like white Americans. President Lincoln deals with a somewhat unknown and politically tense period after his re-election in the fall of 1864 and early 1865, when the Civil War was on. Headed for Reconstruction and the nations struggle, President Lincoln decided that he needed a Constitutional Amendment banning slavery in all the states and territories because the Emancipation Proclamation might not have enough power to abolish slavery forever. However, he knew that such action was probably going to lead towards more war. As a result, his decision began the penetrating congressional battle over the 13th Amendment that marked the United States.

The movie has a lot of historical accuracies and inaccuracies. First, President Lincoln was represented in the movie as a storyteller, especially the Ethan Allen story. Also, in history, Lincoln s said to have close relationship with his sons and he adored children. Furthermore, the look of each character and clothing was very accurate for time, since back in the Civil War years, women clothing was more covering and men dressed more classic and formal. Additionally, one of the most accurate statements could be the fighting of the 13th Amendment. One of the main inaccuracies of the movie was that women could not be at the court house when men were debating on the passing amendments. Also, Mary Todd Lincoln speaking dramatically to Thaddeus Stevens is very inaccurate because she would have never thrown a verbal attack on him at a White House function as she does in the movie. She also didn’t attend meetings of the U.S. House of Representatives; clearly, women weren’t allowed because of inferior beliefs by men. Likewise, in the beginning of the film it shows two Union soldiers, one white and one black, reciting the Gettysburg Address to Abraham Lincoln while he is making a visit to the troops. Even though is a nice and emotional scene that supports the devotion of Union soldiers, there is almost no way that the speech was memorized by anyone because it was long and the speech didn’t achieve popularity it has today until after Lincoln's death. One of the funny things about the movie was when President Lincoln took a speech out of his hat, yet he wasn’t known for pulling speeches out of his top hat. In the scene, it shows Lincoln at a flag-raising ceremony, pulling his short speech out of his top hat; however, as president, he would probably have secretaries with him instead.

The movie was very dramatic, dark, and wordy. But since is a historical innovated movie that is telling the story of President Abraham Lincoln and the 13th Amendment, it actually makes sense it was recreated in a modern way to meet the audiences expectation. I didn’t know how President Lincoln voice was like until I saw the movie, and it might not be exactly the same but it was really close to in what I believe. Most historians say that his voice high and in the movie Daniel Day-Lewis’s voice is amazingly accurate and close ti Lincolns’. Also, the way Lincoln looks is right on. I would think that we don’t need to go back in history to actually see Lincoln in person, if we just watch Day-Lewis in the movie; we can actually travel to time and visualize what our ancient Americans went through and looked like. Lincoln was made to be enjoyed by anybody that knows and doesn’t know about the historic background of the movie; however, the more you know about the movie, the more you'll appreciate the film's re-creation of history.